Politics

Obama Attorney General Nominee Heads for Vote After 5 Months

Published

10 years ago

April 22, 2015

In this Jan. 28, 2015 file photo, Attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch appears on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senate Democrats pressed Republican leaders Thursday, March 5, to schedule a vote on the president's pick to be attorney general. President Barack Obama nominated Lynch in November. She now serves as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File )

In this Jan. 28, 2015 file photo, Attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch appears on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Barack Obama nominated Lynch in November. She now serves as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

ERICA WERNER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s long-stalled nominee for attorney general, federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch, is on her way to a confirmation vote after senators extricated themselves Tuesday from a partisan dispute over abortion that had stood in her way.

An agreement announced by Senate leaders allowed both Republicans and Democrats to save face on a once-uncontroversial bill to help sex-trafficking victims that had turned into a litmus test on abortion.

Although that issue was not connected to Lynch, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had been holding off her nomination vote until the trafficking issue was resolved.

The long delay since Lynch was nominated last fall has provoked increasingly agitated protests from Democrats and Obama, who last week called the situation “embarrassing,” even though Democrats had controlled the Senate for part of that time and had failed to bring her up for a vote.

Lynch, who would become the nation’s first black female attorney general, replacing Eric Holder, is now the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. She has been waiting 164 days for a vote, far longer than most other recent attorney general nominees.

“I said from the beginning to the end that we’d take up the attorney general nominee just as soon as we finished trafficking,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday in defending his approach. “I’m happy with where we are. We needed to finish the trafficking bill. It was an important bill.”

“Let’s get out of this quickly,” said Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. “Let’s get Loretta Lynch confirmed.”

A vote on final passage of the trafficking bill was expected as early as Wednesday, and the vote on Lynch could come as early as Thursday, though timing was still being worked out.

She is expected to win confirmation with at least five Republicans supporting her. Although her record is widely praised, a number of Republicans have said they can’t support her because of her backing for Obama’s executive moves on immigration.

The new human-trafficking deal aims to address Democratic concerns that the legislation would expand existing prohibitions on spending federal funds for abortions. The legislation envisions a new victims’ fund made up of fees paid by sex criminals, and Democrats said that applying abortion spending prohibitions to that new source of non-taxpayer funds was an expansion they could not accept.

Republicans in turn said they had to be satisfied that existing abortion spending prohibitions would not be curtailed.

The final language, negotiated by Reid and Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Patty Murray, D-Wash., would resolve that issue by establishing two sources of money for the new victims’ fund. Money collected from the fines assessed on criminal perpetrators would be used for services such as legal aid, but not for health or medical services, and therefore language on abortion would not be relevant. Money already appropriated by Congress for Community Health Centers — and already subject to abortion spending restrictions — would be available for health and medical services.

Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House was reserving judgment until it had a chance to review the final language in the deal, but he also said the endorsement from some Democrats was “certainly an encouraging sign.”

“If we see strong Democratic support, including from champions for women’s health care like Patty Murray, that certainly seems like the kind of thing the president would be able to support,” Earnest said.

The trafficking bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously, had appeared headed for quick passage through the Senate earlier this year until Democrats started raising alarms about the abortion language. They contended Republicans had sneaked it into the bill, although Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s office has acknowledged that an aide was aware of it.

The pot of money at issue was quite small, but outside interest groups, including Planned Parenthood, got involved and the bill stalled, even as lawmakers in both parties bemoaned the Senate’s inability to advance such a bill.

Tuesday’s deal allows all sides to claim victory: Republicans for ensuring money for medical procedures is subject to the existing abortion restriction, under a rule known as the “Hyde amendment,” and Democrats for establishing that the Hyde restriction isn’t expanded to a new source of money.

Klobuchar took credit for the two-part approach, which she said in an interview came to her as she was driving through a cornfield in Minnesota. Officials in other offices involved credited Cornyn, Reid, Murray and their aides for negotiating the agreement.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, applauded the agreement, saying, “Thankfully, Senators Reid and Murray and other women’s health champions held the line” in the negotiations.

___

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

Published

1 day ago

December 26, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Alameda County

Last City Council Meeting of the Year Ends on Sour Note with Big Budget Cuts

In a five to one vote, with Councilmembers Carroll Fife and Janani Ramachandran excused, the council passed a plan aimed at balancing the $130 million deficit the city is facing. Noel Gallo voted against the plan, previously citing concerns over public safety cuts, while Nikki Fortunato-Bas, Treva Reid, Rebecca Kaplan, Kevin Jenkins, and Dan Kalb voted in agreement with the plan.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Oakland City Council voted on a plan to balance the $130 million deficit at their last regular meeting of 2024. The plan reduces police spending by $25 million, temporarily closes two fire stations, and guts the cultural arts programs. iStock photo.

By Magaly Muñoz

In the last lengthy Tuesday meeting of the Oakland City Council for 2024, residents expressed strong opposition to the much needed budget cuts before a change in leadership was finalized with the certification of election results.

Oakland police and fire departments, the ambassador program, and city arts and culture will all see significant cuts over the course of two phases.

Phase 1 will eliminate two police academies, brown out two fire stations, eliminate the ambassador program, and reduce police overtime by nearly $25 million. These, with several other cuts across departments, aim to save the city $60 million. In addition, the council simultaneously approved to transfer restricted funds into its general purpose fund, amounting to over $40 million.

Phase 2 includes additional fire station brownouts and the elimination of 91 jobs, aiming to recover almost $16 million in order to balance the rest of the budget.

Several organizations and residents spoke out at the meeting in hopes of swaying the council to not make cuts to their programs.

East Oakland Senior Center volunteers and members, and homeless advocates, filled the plaza just outside of City Hall with rallies to show their disapproval of the new budget plan. Senior residents told the council to “remember that you’ll get old too” and that disturbing their resources will only bring problems for an already struggling community.

While city staff announced that there would not be complete cuts to senior center facilities, there would be significant reductions to staff and possibly inter-program services down the line.

Exiting council member and interim mayor Bas told the public that she is still hopeful that the one-time $125 million Coliseum sale deal will proceed in the near future so that the city would not have to continue with drastic cuts. The deal was intended to save the city for fiscal year 2024-25, but a hold up at the county level has paused any progress and therefore millions of dollars in funds Oakland desperately needs.

The Coliseum sale has been a contentious one. Residents and city leaders were originally against using the deal as a way to balance the budget, citing doubts about the sellers, the African American Sports and Entertainment Group’s (AASEG), ability to complete the deal. Council members Reid, Ramachandran, and Gallo have called several emergency meetings to understand where the first installments of the sale are, with little to no answers.

Bas added that as the new Alameda County Supervisor for D5, a position she starts in a few weeks, she will do everything in her power to push the Coliseum sale along.

The city is also considering a sales tax measure to put on the special election ballot on April 15, 2025, which will also serve as an election to fill the now vacant D2 and mayor positions. The tax increase would raise approximately $29 million annually for Oakland, allowing the city to gain much-needed revenue for the next two-year budget.

The council will discuss the possible sales tax measure on January 9.

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Activism

Protesters Gather in Oakland, Other City Halls, to Halt Encampment Sweeps

The coordinated protests on Tuesday in San Francisco, Oakland, Vallejo, Fresno, Los Angeles and Seattle, were hosted by Poor Magazine and Wood Street Commons, calling on cities to halt the sweeps and focus instead on building more housing.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

The California Poor People’s Campaign’s Victoria King erected encampments for unhoused Oaklanders. Victoria King and her committee erected these emergency tents to symbolize the needs of unhoused Oaklanders. Photos by Post Staff.

By Post Staff

Houseless rights advocates gathered in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other city halls across California and Washington state this week protesting increased sweeps that followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision over the summer.

“What we’re dealing with right now is a way to criminalize people who are dealing with poverty, who are not able to afford rent,” said rights advocate Junebug Kealoh, outside San Francisco City Hall.

“When someone is constantly swept, they are just shuffled and things get taken — it’s hard to stay on top of anything,” said Kealoh.

Local houseless advocates include Victoria King, who is a member of the coordinating committee of the California Poor People’s Campaign. She and Dr. Monica Cross co-chair the Laney Poor People’s Campaign.

The demonstrations came after a June Supreme Court ruling expanded local governments’ authority to fine and jail people for sleeping outside, even if no shelter is available. Gov. Gavin Newsom in California followed up with an order directing state agencies to crack down on encampments and urging local governments to do the same.

Fresno, Berkeley and a host of other cities implemented new rules, making it easier for local governments to clear sidewalk camps. In other cities, such as San Francisco, officials more aggressively enforced anti-camping laws already on the books.